Angel
Island, with an area of 640 acres, is the largest island in the San Francisco Bay. It is a
hilly and tree-covered place that has been used by Bay Area residents for hundreds, if not
thousands, of years. The earliest known visitors to Angel Island were Miwok Indians, who
traveled there in reed boats in search of plants and animals. The island first entered
recorded history in 1769, when it was sighted by members of a Spanish exploring
expedition. It received its name in 1775 from Don Juan Manuel Ayala, who explored and
mapped the bay and the area around it. Until 1839 the island was used for many purposes,
most notoriously as a meeting place for smugglers and pirates and as a dueling range. That
year, in an attempt to banish the pirates and duelists, the Spanish governor of California
granted Antonio Maria Osio a title to establish a cattle farm on the island. The plan
worked, and Angel Island once again became a respectable place.(1)

The island officially became a part of the United
States in 1848, following the war between Mexico and the United States. Osio fought to
retain his title to the island, but after a protracted legal battle, the Supreme Court
declared it invalid. In 1850 President Millard Fillmore declared Angel Island to be a
United States military reserve.(2) This declaration marked the beginning of the island's
association with the federal government and ended its other uses.

A late nineteenth-century view of the Angel Island army post.

Military and Quarantine Station

Although military engineers recommended that
batteries be built on Angel Island as part of the fortification of the entrance to San
Francisco Bay, the batteries were not built until the Civil War. Gen. George Wright, the
commander of the Department of the Pacific, obtained $100,000 from the War Department for
the purpose of defending San Francisco against possible attack by the Confederacy.(3) Camp
Reynolds, named in honor of Maj. Gen. John Reynolds, who had been killed in action in the
Battle of Gettysburg, was established on Angel Island. Three artillery batteries were
quickly built, but they were never required to defend the bay from the Confederates. Camp
Reynolds, however, soon assumed an important role for the army. In 1866 it was designated
the army's general depot for receiving and distributing new recruits bound for duty in the
West.(4)

The outbreak of the Spanish-American War led to
the establishment of Angel Island's first use as a detention camp. Captured soldiers from
this war were held on the island, as were American Indians taken prisoner during campaigns
fought in Arizona.(5) Years later, during both world wars, Angel Island would again house
prisoners of war. Furthermore, for a period preceding the completion of Alcatraz prison, a
number of federal prisoners were also housed on the island.

Camp Reynolds and the prisoner-of-war camp were
the only federal installations on Angel Island until the early 1890s, when the government
built a quarantine station there. Yellow fever, cholera, and plague were rampant
throughout the world. Increased shipping traffic across the Pacific--and the construction
of ever-faster ships to make the crossings--threatened to spread these diseases, and
American public health officials resolved to stop them at the border. The quarantine
station's mission was to keep infectious diseases out of the United States by inspecting
and, if necessary, disinfecting ships arriving from contaminated foreign ports.

Construction of the quarantine station began in
1890, and it was officially opened in 1892. The staff included a surgeon, who was in
charge of the establishment, a group of medical officers and inspectors, fumigators, and
various support personnel. The station fulfilled its mission in three general ways: the
inspection of the ships' passengers and crews; the fumigation of ships arriving from ports
where epidemics persisted; and the quarantine or deportation of individuals afflicted with
diseases designated by federal officials as "loathsome or dangerously
contagious." "Loathsome diseases" included venereal diseases such as
gonorrhea and syphilis, certain parasitic diseases, and trachoma.(6) Trachoma is a highly
infectious eye condition caused by Chlamydia bacteria and spread by dirty water
and eye-seeking flies. Its telltale sign is the presence of numerous hard pustules under
their eyelids. When left untreated--and no treatment was available at the turn of the
century--opacity of the cornea and blindness result.(7)

Diseases such as plague, smallpox, and diphtheria
were considered to be less threatening than the abovementioned conditions and therefore
not "loathsome." Potential immigrants into the United States who were afflicted
with these diseases were placed in the hospital at the quarantine station and released
after the illnesses had run their courses. Interestingly, Beriberi was believed to be a
contagious disease at the time. This condition actually results from a simple vitamin
deficiency and is easily treated with supplements of vitamin B6. The records of the
quarantine station for 1903 show that one death from Beriberi occurred at the quarantine
station.(8)

The number of ships passing through the
quarantine station varied over time and with the state of world peace. Prior to the first
world war, up to forty ships a week passed through the station, though not all were
fumigated. During the war, the number of fumigated ships dropped and then increased
greatly after the war to up to twenty a week. The sizes of the ships ranged from one
hundred to over six thousand tons, and fumigation of the larger ships required two or more
days. The quarantine station did a remarkable job in keeping infectious diseases from
reaching epidemic proportions in the United States.

In April 1900, at the behest of the War
Department, the military installation on Angel Island was officially renamed Fort McDowell
in honor of Maj. Gen. Irwin McDowell, and its various installations were given new names.
Thus Camp Reynolds, on the western shore of the island, became "West Garrison."
Fort McDowell, on the eastern shore, became "East Garrison." These new military
terms did not take hold of the popular imagination, however, and the various installations
on Angel Island continued to be known by their old names. Thousands of recruits passed
through the island each year. A typical recruit's stay lasted only a few days, during
which he was given medical and dental examinations, clothing, and some equipment. The post
grew into the country's largest overseas discharge and replacement depot: at peak
recruitment times, four thousand recruits could occupy the island at a time, and by 1939
there were nearly three hundred permanent staff members on the island. Angel Island had a
grade school for children of the permanent staff, a library, and a bowling alley. There
was also a cinema that showed films every night as well as a Catholic church.(9)

The Angel Island Immigration Station

Angel Island is probably best known as the home
of the Angel Island Immigration Station. The station, which operated from 1910 to 1940,
was the main entry point into the United States for people arriving from the Pacific
routes. More than one million people were processed at the station; most were allowed to
enter the United States immediately and did not spend much, if any, time on the island.
Rather, they were allowed to enter San Francisco soon after their ships docked, and their
paperwork was forwarded to the immigration station for processing and storage.

Because so many people were processed there,
Angel Island is often called America's "Ellis Island of the West." This name is
not accurate, however, due to an important difference in the missions of the two
immigration stations. On Ellis Island, immigrants were welcomed to the United States, and
the vast majority were processed and landed immediately. On Angel Island, however, many
immigrants--most of whom were Chinese--were not welcomed at all and were allowed into this
country only grudgingly. The Chinese exclusion laws, first passed in 1882 and updated
periodically until 1943, were enacted to keep Chinese immigrants out of the United States.
During the twentieth century, several other Asian ethnic groups were added as well to the
"excluded" list.

In the mid- to late nineteenth century, large
numbers of Chinese people were coming to the United States, drawn initially by the gold
rush to San Francisco and Gam Saan (the Gold Mountain) then to work as
inexpensive laborers on the transcontinental railroad and in mines in the western part of
the country.(10) Many American-born workers perceived these laborers as having taken jobs
away from them, and when an economic depression hit the United States in the 1870s, the
anti-Chinese sentiment increased enormously. In response to public opinion, Congress
passed the exclusion laws.

In enforcing these laws, immigration officials
detained newly arrived Chinese people while they determined their eligibility to enter the
United States. According to some estimates, 75 to 80 percent of the arrivals were admitted
to the United States after some form of detention. Most detention periods ranged from few
days or a couple of weeks to six months; a few lasted as long as nearly two years.
Regardless of the length of time, detainees had little, if any, contact with friends or
relatives on the mainland. For this reason, the immigration station on Angel Island was
known among Immigration Service officials as the "Guardian of the Western
Gate."(11)

A vessel carrying Chinese immigrants is met by the Health
Service boat from Angel Island.

The first laws barred the immigration of Chinese
laborers for ten years: "Whereas in the opinion of the Government of the United
States the coming of Chinese laborers to this country endangers the good order of certain
localities within the territory thereof . . . the coming of Chinese laborers to the United
States . . . is hereby suspended, and during such suspension it shall not be lawful for
any Chinese laborer to come . . . [to] the United States."(12) The law was also
explicit regarding matters of citizenship for Chinese people: "hereafter no State
court or court of the United States shall admit Chinese to citizenship."(13)

The exclusion laws granted exemptions to certain
groups of Chinese people. Teachers, consular officials, tourists, merchants, and the wives
and children of exempt individuals were allowed to enter the United States. This last
group of exempt people were generally the relatives of American-born Chinese or of those
Chinese people who had been naturalized prior to the passage of the law and who had left
families behind in China when they immigrated to the United States. Sometimes, however,
Chinese men returned to China, married, and brought their wives to the United States.

In 1888 Congress passed another law, restricting
a Chinese person's right to travel: "No Chinese laborer in the United States shall be
permitted, after having left, to return thereto."(14) Again, as with the original
exclusion laws, there were exceptions to this law. Individuals whose wives or children
resided in the United States and those whose assets in this country were greater than one
thousand dollars were allowed to leave and return.

The exclusion laws were renewed in 1892, with
additional provisions. The most restrictive one required all Chinese laborers legally
residing in the United States to obtain certificates of residence that offered proof of
their legal status. Any Chinese laborer without such a certificate would be subject to
arrest and deportation. Laws similar to these were also adopted around the turn of century
in the Hawaiian territories.(15)

Paper Sons and Coaching Letters

The next major event affecting Chinese immigration was the fire that struck San
Francisco following the 1906 earthquake. The fire destroyed most birth and citizenship
records kept by the city. This state of disarray in officialdom led many Chinese people to
claim that they had been born in the United States, that their birth records had been
destroyed, and that they were citizens. American citizenship would allow them to travel
freely and to bring their families to the United States from China. These events, in turn,
gave birth to the "paper son" and "paper daughter" industry. Paper
sons and daughters were individuals who attempted to immigrate to the United States by
claiming to be the children of American citizens or exempt residents when in fact their
papers were false. The papers were supplied by groups or individuals who, for a fee,
provided paper children and their paper parents with information and letters that offered
evidence of a valid familial relationship. Such documents included false testimonies on
the individual's behalf as well as identification papers with his photograph affixed in
place of the original photograph.

The groups that acted as intermediaries in the paper son industry ran thriving
businesses. Many of them established fictitious firms that purported to be retail shops
but existed solely for immigration purposes. A partnership book dated 1914 for a
fictitious firm in San Francisco illustrates this point: "The purpose of this firm is
to bring profit to ourselves with the benefit to others. It benefits others because it
provides headquarters for our relatives."(16) Furthermore: "Any person who
should use the firm's name to enable boys to come to the United States as his sons must
pay the firm Fifty Dollars ($50) for each boy."(17) And finally: "Should anyone
outside of the present partnership desire to use the name of our firm for making a
merchant paper he must pay the sum of Fifty Dollars and then he will be rated as a
partner."(18)

Immigration officials question a
new Chinese arrival at Angel
Island to determine his
eligibility to enter the United
States.

Likewise, paper sons--or those who desired to bring them to the United States--were
expected to pay large sums to the brokers who arranged for their immigration. The
following statement was received by an Immigration Service inspector from Mr. Lee Tin Yat:
"I have found a Chinese vegetable vendor at Oregon Street of this city [who] told me
that Quan promised to [land] his nephew as a son of a native for the sum $1400 . . . in
U.S. Gold."(19) In response to this new strategy to "pull the teeth" of the
exclusion laws, Immigration Service officials arranged to detain Chinese immigrants in
order to question them, their alleged parents, witnesses, and other parties who, in the
service's judgment, might provide relevant evidence. During this time of detention, newly
arrived Chinese people and their sponsors in the United States were interrogated at great
length by Immigration Service officials, who asked them to describe their parents,
grandparents, and siblings. They were also questioned with a meticulous--if not
fanatic--eye to detail about their houses in China, their villages, and any other details
that appeared to be pertinent. The Immigration Service reasoned that true relatives would
give similar sets of answers to their questions; prospective immigrants whose answers did
not match those of their alleged fathers were branded as paper sons and deported.
Prospective immigrants were therefore often asked to describe the minutiae of their lives
and surroundings in China. Everything from the names of siblings and the schools they
attended to arrangement of houses in neighborhoods was fair game for inspectors attempting
to distinguish paper sons, daughters, and wives from the real thing.

ALLEGED HUSBAND RECALLED--SWORN
Q. You stated that your wife's [wedding] veil was striped goods--red and yellow. Is that
correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Were there any other ornaments of any kind on that veil?
A. No.
Q. Were the stripes quite broad or otherwise?
A. Not too wide.(20)

Once inspectors were satisfied that they had obtained a critical mass of detail, they
summoned the prospective immigrant's father or husband for interrogation. They asked the
same questions of him and of any other witnesses who were able to attest to the
relationship. Next they compared transcripts; if the answers given by all parties shared a
sufficient amount of detail, the new arrival was certified as being the son/daughter/wife
of the individual in question and allowed to land in the United States. If, however, there
were too many discrepancies between the various testimonies, the new arrival would receive
deportation orders. If he chose to appeal the decision, more interrogations would follow,
and his case file would work its way up through the chain of command until he was either
admitted or definitively ordered deported.

The Chinese community developed its own response to the interrogation process in the
form of "coaching papers" or "coaching letters." Coaching papers were
small pieces of paper--a few to several inches long--that contained information about the
hopeful immigrant's "family" in China. Coaching papers were usually given to
prospective immigrants before they departed for the United States. Not surprisingly,
considering the nature of the interrogations, even true relatives of exempt Chinese used
coaching papers. The immigrants would memorize the information on the papers during the
sea voyage from China and sometimes destroy them by throwing them overboard as they neared
their destinations. Coaching letters would get quite specific: "If the inspector asks
you how far your village is from the Bamboo and tree, you answer 'I have no bamboo trees
in my village, there [are] only bamboo and trees behind the hill of Jeung Bin village.'
"(21) The end of this letter offers the following advice: "Be sure to study and
memorize the above questions and answers right away. After you get through with them,
don't forget to destroy this letter. I herewith enclose . . . a photo of [your paper
father]. Study his features and do not fail to recognize him."

Supplemental coaching information was also exchanged between detainees and their
contacts on the mainland, often with the collusion of both the Chinese American kitchen
staff at the immigration station and with other individuals employed by the Immigration
Service. While the kitchen staff tended to ferry additional coaching papers to the
detainees, other people, including night watchmen and gardeners, were involved in the
trafficking of files and information from Angel Island to groups on the mainland. These
individuals were suspected of removing documents from the file storage rooms after work
hours. They then gave the files to groups in San Francisco and were reimbursed for their
work. By 1916 the level of corruption on Angel Island had reached such proportions that a
large-scale investigation led by Mr. John Densmore was undertaken. One station employee
described one use for these files: "Before the scheme of substituting photographs
used to be in practice, in order that a Chinese could leave this country as a Native, the
landing papers of a Native were taken from the files at Angel Island, and the applicant
would depend solely on the notes taken by the stenographer at the time of arrival for the
approval of the case."(22) The following statement from the investigation concerns
allegations against a night watchman named Akers, who was suspected of trafficking
information: "Well, while Kaphan and I were engaged in this business, he said he had
put the proposition of taking these records from the Island up to Akers, and that Akers
had agreed to take them over for $4 apiece."(23)

The potential financial gain from involvement in the paper son industry was
substantial; in fact, the Densmore case files indicate that some people may have made as
much as $100,000 a year from the business.(24) Not surprisingly, those who had the most to
gain were willing to pay large bribes in exchange for the silence or cooperation of
officials investigating abuses. Mr. Robert Fergusson, an investigator involved in the
Densmore investigation, was offered such a bribe. He made the following statement about
being approached by a man who told him about another investigator, a Mr. Hilkemeyer:
"Among other things he said that Hilkemeyer . . . was willing to change his testimony
regarding some of the defendants if he were paid some $10,000. McClymont wanted to know if
I could get enough out of the ten thousand to influence me to change my
testimony."(25)

The Densmore investigation uncovered widespread abuse of the Chinese exclusion laws and
the exemptions to them and showed that the system was rife with paper sons, coaching
papers, corrupt officials, and fraudulent business partnerships. As a result of the
investigation, a number of people were prosecuted or sacked, and security measures on the
island were changed.(26) Although this investigation alleviated a substantial amount of
the problem, it was unable to end it altogether. As long as the Chinese exclusion laws
remained in force, there were always people who wanted to beat them. In a description of
the immigration station written in the 1930s, the writer describes methods of
communication between detainees and people in San Francisco despite strenuous official
attempts to quash it: "Coaching letters are sometimes hidden in wearing apparel, and
even in foodstuffs brought to the Island; on once [sic] occasion a closely
written paper having been placed in a peanut shell in order to pass the vigilant eyes of
the immigration officers."(27)

Life at the Immigration Station

While they were being detained at the station, prospective immigrants were housed in
barracks. Living conditions in the barracks were harsh and demoralizing for Chinese
immigrants, especially in light of the long periods of detention suffered by some of the
inmates. Conditions were perceived as "crowded and unsanitary, resembling a
slum."(28) Regarding the confines of the barracks, one immigration official remarked
that "if a private individual had such an establishment, he would be arrested by
local health authorities."(29)

In the women's barracks, detainees slept in bunk beds stacked three high and two
across. This arrangement allowed seventy to one hundred women to sleep and live in a
single room. Arrangements in the barracks for the men were similar, although there were
more beds there. Privacy was minimal, due not only to the sleeping arrangements but also
to the absence of doors on bathroom and shower stalls.(30) Furthermore, the unfortunate
detainees spent a significant amount of time locked inside the barracks because of
Immigration Service fears that they would escape from the island if given too much
freedom. Consequently, the detainees were allowed outside the barracks only for meals,
interrogations, and supervised recreation in the exercise yard. The women and children
were also allowed on supervised walks around the station grounds. Thus passed the life of
a detainee on Angel Island.

In response to the conditions of their detentions, and to the uncertainty of their
futures, many of the detainees wrote poetry that spoke of their despair. The poems were
written on the walls of the detention barracks, and many of them survive to this day.
Chinese immigrants, like their European counterparts, came to the United States in search
of new lives, prosperity, and Gam Saan, or the Gold Mountain. Instead, they were
greeted with a detention center, interrogations, and uncertainty. Their poems speak of
their frustration with their conditions:

Detained in this wooden house for
several tens of days
because of the exclusion laws.
It's a pity heroes have no place
to exercise their prowess.

Waiting for news of my release,
I am ready to snap my whip and gallop.
All my kinsmen and housemates
will be happy for me.

But don't deny this Western grandeur,
this imposing facade
For behind the jade carvings,
there lies a cage.(31)

The male detainees formed a society of self-government called the Liberation Society,
or izhihui. The society was formed to bring some social structure to the
detention barracks, and its officers were elected from individuals who had been detained
the longest. The society brought some form of self-determination to the detainees and thus
alleviated some of the strain associated with long periods of confinement.

The lives of all of the detainees on the island were also improved somewhat by the
presence of Deaconess Katherine Maurer. Deaconess Maurer, who was known as the "Angel
of Angel Island," was appointed in 1912 by the Women's Home Missionary Society to do
welfare work on behalf of the detainees. She performed this work on a full-time basis
until the station closed in 1940. In addition to giving English lessons, she introduced
people to American culture and provided them with small items that eased their conditions
of detention. Among other things, she provided detainees with towels, soap, toothbrushes
and toothpaste, combs, stationery, and sewing supplies. She also brought toys, games,
crayons, storybooks, and dolls for the children.(32) The district director of the
Immigration Service admired Deaconess Maurer's work greatly, an opinion he made clear in a
report to the immigration commissioner in 1935: "Much credit is due to the fine
welfare work carried on by Miss Maurer at this immigration station."(33)

Enemy Aliens

Although Chinese people constituted a large number of the total detainees on Angel
Island, they were not the only groups held there. Other Asians, South and Central
Americans, Europeans, and Australians were all processed through the station, although the
majority of them never spent a night there. Japanese picture brides also constituted a
sizable group of Pacific arrivals. Following photograph-based engagements, these women had
been married by proxy to Japanese men already residing in the United States. Following
their wedding ceremonies, they crossed the Pacific to join their new husbands, at which
time the marriages were recertified according to U.S. law. Apart from those brides whose
paperwork was of questionable authenticity or whose new mates failed to respond to the
Immigration Service, most brides were never detained on the island. In fact, most
non-Chinese were allowed to land immediately, and only their paperwork spent time on Angel
Island. However, some groups were detained, notably the "enemy aliens" detained
during the two world wars.

In this group of newly arrived immigrants to Angel Island,
Japanese women precede Chinese men down the pier.

In his declarations of war against the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires in 1917,
President Wilson declared that "no alien enemy shall land in or enter the United
States, except under such restrictions and at such places as the President may
prescribe."(34) The declarations also stated that individuals who were not deemed to
be threats to the United States--such as women and children--would be allowed to enter and
reside in this country. However, Wilson also stated that all male citizens of belligerent
countries who were over the age of fourteen--especially those who had been associated with
the military--would "be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed,
as alien enemies."(35) This declaration resulted in the detention of a number of
alien enemies--the great majority of whom were current or former members of the German or
Austro-Hungarian military--for the duration of the war. Some of these individuals were
housed on Angel Island. In May of 1917, they numbered approximately 150 people.

Enemy aliens were housed in the same barracks as the Chinese and other immigration
detainees, although all of the various groups were separated by ethnic origin. Like the
Asian detainees, the prisoners of war were evidently not very happy with their conditions
of detention. In a May 1917 letter of complaint to the district director of immigration
for the San Francisco area, they expressed their discontent with the sanitary conditions
at the station. Specifically, they complained of inadequate toilet and bathing facilities
and of uncleanliness in the kitchen and dining areas. Furthermore, they complained that
fifty men were housed in a single room, ventilation in the rooms was poor, and no drinking
water was available in them. Finally, as were the Chinese men, they were allowed to
exercise only two to three hours a day. The Germans requested some alleviation of their
conditions.(36) The outcome of the complaint is unknown, but the prisoners did spend the
remainder of the war on Angel Island.

Fire Safety at the Immigration Station

Although Deaconess Maurer and the Chinese self-governing society provided a great deal
of relief to the detainees on Angel Island, they were not able to overcome certain
shortcomings at the station, the most serious of which was the condition of the buildings.
Debates over sanitary and fire safety conditions at the Immigration Station began shortly
after it opened in 1910 and continued until a fire destroyed it in 1940.

A complaint about fire safety at the station lodged with the secretary of labor in 1915
criticized the station as being insufficiently fireproof. The writer suggested that the
station be closed and its officials and occupants be removed "to fireproof, sanitary
buildings situated on the mainland."(37) Furthermore, overcrowding and a lack of
isolation facilities in the hospital exacerbated the spread of disease, and complaints
about epidemics were made to the commissioner of immigration in Washington as early as
1915.(38) In 1920 an epidemic of meningitis broke out at the station; its cause was
attributed to the unsanitary conditions still prevailing there.

In 1923 another report was made to the immigration commissioner. This report criticized
fire safety standards as being quite inadequate and stated that the administration
building was "without proper fire protection." The detention building was
without "any fire protection at all," and as for the hospital building, "in
the case of fire, there would be a serious loss of life."(39) Similar criticisms were
made of almost every building at the station, even of the fire hoses and the water supply
for them. Indeed, several small fires did break out over the years. While no deaths or
significant loss of property resulted from these fires, the warnings they made went
unheeded, and significant improvements were not made to the station.

On the evening of August 12, 1940, a fire broke out in the administration building.
Soldiers from Fort McDowell rushed to the scene, where they assisted the detainees in
dousing the blaze. No one was injured, but the building was completely destroyed. A board
of inquiry, after interviewing everyone who may have had information about the fire,
determined that it had not been set deliberately. However, deliberate or not, the fire
finally demonstrated that the immigration station was dangerously unsafe and that it was
no longer able to fulfill the purpose for which it had been constructed. The detainees and
officials of the station were moved to San Francisco, and arrangements were made for the
U.S. Army to take over its grounds. A skeleton crew remained at the station until early
1941, when the army officially assumed control. After making some improvements to the
structures there, the station was again used, during World War II, to house enemy aliens.

World War II

Enemy aliens were defined as citizens of Germany and other Axis countries. Current and
former members of the military were especially considered to be alien enemies, and many
were arrested and detained. During this war, however, Angel Island was merely a temporary
holding camp for prisoners, who were sent to permanent quarters in various places around
the West. Many of them stayed on the island only for a few weeks. One group of Germans,
for example, was the crew of the SS Columbus, a German merchant marine ship
scuttled off the U.S. coast in 1940. Faced with choosing between fleeing to the British
ship that sunk them and an American ship nearby, the crew of the Columbus chose
the Americans. In so doing, they became the guests of the U.S. government rather than the
prisoners of the British government. They retained this status until December 1941, when
war between the United States and Germany was officially declared. The crew of the Columbus
was moved to New Mexico, where they sat out the war in a special facility near
Roswell.(40)

The arrival of World War II also brought an end to the Chinese exclusion laws. The
United States, as an ally of China against Japan, no longer desired to exclude its allies,
and the laws were repealed in 1943.

Angel Island was a busy place throughout the course of World War II. Tens of thousands
of recruits passed through Fort McDowell on the way to duty overseas. In fact, the
Overseas Discharge and Replacement Depot at Fort McDowell was the largest such
establishment in the United States. When the war was over, thousands of soldiers again
passed through Fort McDowell as they returned from duty in the Pacific region. In 1945 a
sixty-foot sign directed at returning soldiers was erected: "Welcome Home, Well
Done." The soldiers continued to return until 1946, when their numbers were reduced
to nearly zero. At this time, the army closed Fort McDowell and withdrew from the island,
declaring it to be surplus territory.

The area that had been the quarantine station was turned over to the state of
California for use as a parkland in 1954. The next year, however, the military returned to
Angel Island, in order to fight the cold war. A missile site was completed in 1955, and
Nike missiles were installed on the western shore of the island. In 1958 more of Angel
Island was given to California for use as a state park. The missiles remained there until
1962, when they had become obsolete. At this time, the rest of the island was given to the
state of California.

Today the California Department of Parks and Recreation maintains Angel Island State
Park. The island, which has been designated a National Historical Landmark, is a popular
destination for tourists and residents alike, who travel by ferry or private boat to dock
at the former quarantine station. In a tour around the island, visitors can share a
historical journey from the nineteenth centry to the present. Tours of Angel Island are
led by docents trained by the Angel Island Association (AIA), an organization that works
to commemorate the island's heritage. During the tour, visitors see Civil War-era
buildings at Camp Reynolds and the former Nike missile sites of the 1950s. The men's
detention quarters at the immigration station are open to the public; some of the poetry
written by detainees seventy-five years ago is still visible on the walls of this
building. Finally, a small museum at the former quarantine station tells Angel Island's
story in pictures, artifacts, and words. The Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation
(ISF) also works to preserve the island's history, focusing on Asian immigration. Both the
ISF and the AIA played a significant role in getting the island named a National
Historical Landmark.

Today Angel Island is no longer the "Guardian of the Western Gate." Instead,
as a state park and National Historical Landmark, it has a new mission to welcome all
visitors and tell the stories of its former visitors and the place they hold in American
history.

NOTES

This article has been written as part of a project sponsored by Congressman Tom Lantos
to commemorate the history of Angel Island. Many thanks are due to Mrs. Annette Lantos,
Iswari España, and to Congressman Lantos's staff. Thanks are also due to Waverly Lowell,
Neil Thomsen, Dan Nealand, and the rest of the staff of the National Archives-Pacific
Region, without whose assistance this essay would not have been written. The Angel Island
Association may be reached at 415-435-3522. The Angel
Island Immigration Station Foundation may be reached at 29237, San Francisco, CA 94129-0237.

1. Maj. Oscar W. Koch, U.S. Cavalry, "Fort McDowell--Grand Hotel, U.S.A.,"
Nov. 19, 1939, file no. 12030/1-1, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service,
Record Group 85, National Archives and Records Administration-Pacific Region (San
Francisco) (hereinafter, records in NARA-Pacific Region (SF) will be cited as RG ___,
NAPS); fact sheet, Sept. 1, 1972, Ephemera Box 66, Headquarters of the Sixth United States
Army, Office of the Chief, Public Affairs, Presidio of San Francisco, California, Archives
of the Presidio of San Francisco.

6. Annual Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration, 1928 (hereinafter
cited as 1928 Annual Report).

7. Ibid.

8. Wayne Biddle, A Field Guide to Germs (1995), p. 35.

9. Hugh S. Cumming, Passed Assistant Surgeon in command of the quarantine station, to
U.S. Surgeon General, July 1, 1903, Bound books, book 1 "Letters to the Surgeon from
the medical officer in charge, July 1, 1903-March 1, 1926," Records of the Public
Health Service, 1912-1968, RG 90, NAPS.

12. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Immigration, Treaty, Laws, and Rules
Governing the Admission of Chinese, Rules of May 1, 1917 (3d ed., October 1920), p.
6.

13. Ibid., p. 9.

14. Ibid., p. 10.

15. Ibid., pp. 15, 17.

16. "Partnership book in Chinese,captured by customs inspectors on the premises of
the fictitious firm operating under the name of Quong Fat Cheung, at No. 30 Waverly Place,
San Francisco, Cal." RG 85, NAPS.

31. Ibid. A collection of poetry written on the walls of the detention barracks on
Angel Island has been compiled in the book Island: Poetry and History of Immigrants
Detained on Angel Island, 1910-1940, ed. Him Mark Lai, Genny Lim, and Judy Yung
(1986).

34. Woodrow Wilson, Declaration of War between the United States and the German
Empire, Apr. 6, 1917; Declaration of War between the United States and the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, Dec. 7, 1917, copy in folder no. 12016/1106, RG 85, NAPS.

40. John Joel Culley, "A Troublesome Presence: World War II Internment of German
Sailors in New Mexico," Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives and Records
Administration 28 (Winter 1996): 279-295.